Food & Water

Licking inflation the homestead way

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Even when manufacturers purportedly “hold the line” on prices, inflation wins. The hoe you buy today for nearly the same price as the one you bought fifteen years ago will need repair or replacement twice as soon which means that the inflation occurs not only in your wallet but in the increasing height of the landfill. Or, what is very prevalent right now, the manufacturer holds the line on the price, but when you check the package, it holds somewhat less than it did previously.

Peak Moment 198: How many community gardens?

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Having learned “How Much Food Can I Grow Around My House?” (Peak Moment 87), Judy Alexander kept right on going. As chair of the Local 2020 Food Resiliency Action Group in Port Townsend, WA, she helped initiate 25 community gardens in her county within four years. Sitting in her own neighborhood’s garden, she talks about the power of cooperative gardens compared with individual plots. There’s something for people of all ages and skills to do (even non-gardeners), while enjoying learning from one another, and building closer neighbors and a more secure community.

Corn Pros and Cons

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The ear of corn is one awesome seedhead and growing the stuff is fairly easy, all things considered. That’s the whole problem. Corn is sort of like sex. It is such a wonderful thing that it is easy to carry to excess.

To profit or not to profit on the food movement?

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When one considers one’s actions as activism, done for the purpose of creating social, political, or economic change, and not just personal fulfillment, it behooves one to have a “theory of change.” The “anti-capitalist” theory of change holds that solutions to market failures can’tt come from the market (recalling Einstein, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”), and this is hard to square with a “green economy” theory of change, which believes that a capitalist economy can be reformed, through business, into one that is less destructive to people and the environment.

Stopping poverty through sustainability in the South Bronx: An interview with Majora Carter

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“…I am putting all of the pieces together in order to launch a national brand of locally grown produce—everything from the most efficient hydroponic growing systems, brand identity, USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] support, political allies, relationships with institutional buyers, and investors. I want to redirect some of the capital flows in the food business to revitalize underutilized industrial space and people.”

Growing water deficit threatening grain harvests

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Many countries are facing dangerous water shortages. As world demand for food has soared, millions of farmers have drilled too many irrigation wells in efforts to expand their harvests. As a result, water tables are falling and wells are going dry in some 20 countries containing half the world’s people. The overpumping of aquifers for irrigation temporarily inflates food production, creating a food production bubble that bursts when the aquifer is depleted.

“Land Grabs” in agriculture: Fairer deals needed to ensure opportunity for locals

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The trend of international land grabbing—when governments and private firms invest in or purchase large tracts of land in other countries for the purpose of agricultural production and export—can have serious environmental and social consequences, according to researchers at the Worldwatch Institute.